KEY POINTS:
A Christchurch woman is angry at the scars she now bears after a botched surgery to remove material left inside her from a previous operation.
Karen Cassidy, 46, received the 13cm scar after surgeons at Christchurch Hospital removed surgical gauze from under her belly-button, left in her two months earlier.
The material had become infected in the time after her first operation -- to cut a giant liquid-filled cyst out of her stomach.
The cyst had grown to take up a third of her abdomen and was displacing her organs.
Ms Cassidy had the mass removed during a six-hour operation, but the infection caused her to swell up. Her doctors warned the growth could be coming back, The Press newspaper reports.
"The first one was an absolute nightmare," she told the paper. "But having to have another was terrifying.
"It's a white-knuckle ride. You realise you're going through it with so many people who care about you."
After her GP told her about the cyst, she immediately took a place in the queue for public healthcare. However, fearing for her life, she entered as a private patient and paid for it herself.
The resthome caregiver was left financially drained, after paying for the operation and not able to work while she healed.
Ms Cassidy was not eligible for ACC until her second hospital visit, she said.
She did not blame the surgeon -- rather, it was the staff doing the stocktake of items should have checked they had taken everything out of her before they sewed her up, she said.
Canterbury District Health Board chief medical officer Dr Nigel Millar said the hospital was reviewing its procedures to make sure accidents like Ms Cassidy's did not happen again.
"The surgeon had been informed at the end of the procedure that all items had been accounted for," Millar said.
"An apology was given to Ms Cassidy. We will be staying in touch with her to inform her of the outcome of our review."
- NZPA
